Chapter 191 - War Goals

Note : Chapters 192, 193, 194 and 195 have been written and added to the queue !

I also wanted to thank all you guys for your kind words yesterday. It helped a ton. Thank you.

Chapter 191

Red Sands Desert, Province of Erakis

Republic Expeditionary Force Camp

"I don't like any of this." Said the general as he gazed at the mass of intelligence. Most of it was from that colonel, Orzal Vek, but a fair bit was from his own contacts and sources. After all, Amelia had warned him about the colonel's past failures…if they were not a deliberate setup.

"What's not to like sir?" Said his second in command, her voice dripping with irony. "Dungeon that's building an army to protect itself, giant piles of artillery, a town full of Tarkian armaments…oh, and let's not forget the fact that they just smashed an Old World armada and are probably salvaging the wreckage as we speak! What's not to love about this utterly unforeseeable set of events?"

The general chuckled as he looked at the major. They'd been together since the last skirmish with Tark and had hit it off. They worked well together, and she had the essential trait of any soldier to be able to laugh at anything rather than try to swallow the business end of an arquebus when things went sideways, hard.

He just wished it wasn't a trait so essential to their current operations.

"Indeed. Or our so called 'kraken repulsor', from our good friends in the senate." He looked askance at the device, sitting in a corner of the tent. Well, at least the heavily armored chest protecting it. Given how vital the damned thing was, he'd outright refused to part with it under any circumstances and would have slept with the artifact under his pillow had it been small enough. "I don't trust this thing as far as I can throw a dreadnought."

"Agreed. And they're taking us for idiots as well."

The general nodded grimly. There had been some attempt to have a makeover on the artifact…but it was clearly Old World technology of some kind.

Which given what had just happened to Rebirth, did not inspire confidence. At all. For all he knew they could bring down another round of mechanical abominations down on their heads. At least of the Old World variety, he was grimly certain the dungeon core would send her own flavor to deal with them.

"They are. And these new dungeon golems our spies and 'friends in the kingdom' reported…if even half of what they said is true, we're in for a massacre."

"Yeah. They're decked out like Tarkian infantry. I mean, submachine guns, bolt action rifles, trench armor? That's insane. The dungeon only had muzzle loading muskets a few months ago!"

"As well as some serious artillery. I guess the town decided to sneak her some Tarkian goodies."

"Right. And the guild doesn't seem to care."

"I think they're a bit too busy with the scandals to deal with it. That won't last forever, but…"

"It'll last long enough."

"Yep." The general sighed as he leaned over the field table, tapping the map hapazardly tacked onto it. "So we can expect one hell of a painful assault on the town itself."

"Their defences have been destroyed."

"Only some of them. And mostly on the side with the highly radioactive wreckage. But still, you're right, I'll take some radiation over rushing an intact fortress wall with siege guns bombarding us anytime. And I think most of our men would too. What worries me is the dungeon. The town itself is just an accessory at this point."

"You don't think Orzal's men will succeed?"

The general laughed mirthlessly.

"If they were likely to, they already would have. This is just a rehash of their last attempt, and they came close, but this time the dungeon will be ready for them. No, I don't expect them to succeed. I want them to, mind you, but I think we'll have to take down the dungeon the old fashioned way."

"An infantry assault would be suicide. We have some disruptors, thanks to the black ops, but there's no way a conventional attack will work. Overwhelming a normal dungeon is already hard as hell, and a freaking bloodbath even at the best of times. And Crystal is not normal in any way, shape or form."

"Indeed. Which is why I am thinking along the lines of what Orzal proposed."

The major tilted her head.

"You can't seriously think you can negotiate with the dungeon, sir? Even if she was even willing to listen to you, how would you convince her we wouldn't try to capture and enslave her-" The again was unspoken, but rang as loud as a gunshot nonetheless. "-as soon as the kingdom is beaten back to Darthar?"

"Quite honestly? By giving her part of the surrounding area and letting her build her own pocket city."

"The senate will never stand for an extraterritorial unit."

"They swallowed the province of Eternity becoming autonomous, and they'll swallow this too. If we play our cards right. And as a bonus…"

"We'll have someone who hates the senate's guts to 'guard', which means they won't be able to remove us."

"And we'll buy some time for Amelia." He smiled and the major returned it. Both of them were part of Amelia's preparations, and despite the level of compartmentalization, it didn't take a genius to realize what she was doing. At the same time, they were perfectly aware the senate was only sizing up her neck for the axe. Which meant putting them in a position where breaking the army's back would be….ill advised.

After all, who said that Sunrise would stop at Darthar? Even if, as he'd come to suspect, there was some kind of understanding between the senate and the slavers -as, unlike Amelia, he had no orders to advance to Darthar if things went well-, they'd trust each other even less than he would trust them. Which was saying something.

"So it's not suicide. Besides, I have been pondering something as well."

"Which is?"

"We don't have to worry about royal reinforcements. We can try to siege the city. And if we do, we might be able to get Amelia enough time. In which case…"

The major's eyes went wide.

"No. You're not serious, are you? You want to recruit the dungeon?!?"

The general shrugged, with a smile.

"What better way to make a deal and show her we mean it? The town becomes an autonomous province, with the baroness as its governor, and full freedom to do whatever she damned wishes inside her domain. And we get one hell of a trade and supply boon, especially if we can convince them to sell us some of their gear. With the kingdom collapsing around them, they have to be thinking about jumping ships. And we'll offer them vengeance on a silver platter."

"That's…"

"The word you're looking for is 'ambitious', I believe." The general chuckled. "But that's only a possibility, of course. I doubt the dungeon, let alone the town, will even consider it if we don't twist their arms a bit. And that assumes we don't overwhelm them."

"Or they don't overwhelm us. That dungeon will be building more golems for every day we wait."

The general nodded.

"Indeed. Which is why I definitely intend to try and take control of the city in one fell swoop, if we can."

"They'll be reinforcing their fortifications. They have to know we're coming. And we sure as hell aren't as fast as Amelia's force."

"I know. There are never enough airships when you need them." That and they couldn't requisition the vessels that belonged to various influential senators or their cronies, which had cut deeply into the pool of available ships for logistical transport. Which meant one hell of a slow baggage train to keep their supplies straight. They weren't quite crawling along, but it was close. "But we'll make it. And as full of surprises as they've proven…no one rebuilds fortifications that fast, especially not after automata from the Old World has wrecked it."

"I hope you're right sir. Because I don't want to know how many people we'll loose if we have to attack that kind of fortress with the dungeon behind it."

"On that, we are most definitely agreed. So let's make sure it never comes to that, shall we?"

*****

Allya sighed as she set down the reports, and rubbed her eyes.

Well, the news weren't as terrible as they could have been. Yet.

Sunrise was still advancing on all fronts, but for reasons unknown, that she was sure had to do with some backroom deals and concessions, the Sapphire Kingdom had stopped their border raids…on the loyalists, and begun intensifying theirs on the rebel duchy.

It hadn't made a significant dent in Sunrise's forces, but every little bit helped. The western baronies and duchies were also finally getting their house in order, stomping down the embers of Sunrise's insurgencies and were starting to send reinforcements to help the capital. There was no telling how effective their troops would be, most of them were levies of some form or another, but luckily those kind of low grade troops performed relatively well in defensive sieges. Relatively being the operative word.

And Alexandra's little stratagem, of making Rebirth of such importance to the Kingdom that it could simply not be allowed to be destroyed, was working to some extent. The looted muskets were currently all being bought by the crown and the duchy of Sarth, and for the first time that anyone could remember, adventurers were starting to loot all the dungeon's golems for their weaponry, as the price of even the admittedly basic swords and spears had gone through the roof.

The Count of Darthar, specifically, was stockpiling as much armament as he could, and Allya's correspondence with him had gone from practically non-existent, after Rebirth had become a frontier principality, to frantic. The poor bastard was out of his depth, but thankfully he had the duke of Sarth and Elkaryos to rely on. She was starting to like the young man, he might not be a hardened battle commander, but his heart was in the right place and he had the brains to know he wasn't qualified for this and ask for help.

She'd started diverting all vaguely military related loot towards Darthar, since her own forces wouldn't have much use for them and Alexandra's army would eclipse them anyway. If the dungeon core had boarded and nuked an Old World ship without anyone realizing it, a few spears and fireball launchers weren't going to make much of a difference. At least she'd been drunk enough when that little tidbit had been told to her that she hadn't fainted again, although she'd certainly wanted to in the morning, had Pyn not been obliging enough to thoroughly distract her.

All of that meant that the original defensive plan for Darthar had been modified to try and keep the trade route open for as long as feasible, and additional resources were being allocated by Sarth to try and maintain the flow of resources both ways. There wasn't much military aid that could be sent directly, and that which had been offered, Allya had politely declined.

After talking to Alexandra and becoming her full on ally, for real this time, she had absolutely zero doubt about the Republic's defeat. It was just a question of how irritated the dungeon became before she crushed them like insects.

Sunrise was another matter entirely however. If they lost Darthar, their primary trade link would collapse. Which was strange to say because they were still trading with the Republic unimpeded, despite the fact that they were the ones attempting to conquer the city. But then again, with Gorromar's…displeasure at the Republic killing several of their citizens and breaking the state's security guarantees on the docking tower and the construction crew had materialized in the form of an ever expanding trade embargo that had brought commerce between Sunrise and the Republic to a crashing halt. The Republic needed those goods to keep its economy running, and that meant keeping the route opened, however illogical it might seem, and Allya wasn't about to disrupt something that was helping her a lot more than it was the Republic. Especially not when she knew a lot of that money on their hand would just disappear into the gullet of corrupt senators, who would spend it on manors, luxuries and internal bickering while she spent every mana to kicking the ever living crap of their army, or at least cheering for her 'ally' and providing a figurehead while the dungeon core did the kicking.

All things considered, there were much worse alternatives.

Ally stirred as someone knocked on the door to her office.

"Yes?" She called out, and Éclair's head poked through the gap as the bodyguard opened the door.

"Milady, Crystal invites you to meet her in the dungeon. Apparently she has a demonstration ready for you?"

Allya nodded.

"Of course! Tell her I'll be right there!"